What I am watching: Montclair actor/storyteller Gerald Fierst

The Montclair Times

Gerald Fierst, local actor and storyteller

GERALD FIERST

What I'm watching at the moment is "Downton Abbey," like all of America. My son jokes with me, he says that I love bourgeois costume drama. What's wrong with that? That's what Jane Austen was. These series become the popular novels. When Dickens wrote, the chapters were so enthusiastically expected that crowds would gather at the Battery in New York City looking for the ship to come over the horizon. I think when "Little Dorrit" was published, 100,000 people gathered at the Battery waiting for the final chapters.

The other day I saw this tribute to the National Theatre in England. All of the actors, Maggie Smith, the rest, were doing Shakespeare and then I see them on "Downton Abbey." It's not just the typical sit-com style of acting. What makes the series so engrossing is that we're all involved with the characters. It's a soap opera, but it's really the characters that keep us watching. We delight to see what Maggie Smith will do next. All she has to do is arch her eyebrows and we crack up.

In a sense it's the familiar we're going back to. We've come to appreciate these members of our fictional family. It's really a pleasant Sunday evening to spend with them. They work in the same way that folktales work. There are stock characters. Alfred is in some ways like "lazy Jack," who acquires talents and when he has to face the devil, pulls them out of his pocket.

What I am watching: Montclair actor/storyteller Gerald Fierst

What I'm watching at the moment is "Downton Abbey," like all of America. My son jokes with me, he says that I love bourgeois costume drama. What's wrong with that? That's what Jane Austen was. These series become the popular novels. When Dickens wrote, the chapters were so enthusiastically expected that crowds would gather at the Battery in New York City looking for the ship to come over the horizon. I think when "Little Dorrit" was published, 100,000 people gathered at the Battery waiting for the final chapters.

The other day I saw this tribute to the National Theatre in England. All of the actors, Maggie Smith, the rest, were doing Shakespeare and then I see them on "Downton Abbey." It's not just the typical sit-com style of acting. What makes the series so engrossing is that we're all involved with the characters. It's a soap opera, but it's really the characters that keep us watching. We delight to see what Maggie Smith will do next. All she has to do is arch her eyebrows and we crack up.

In a sense it's the familiar we're going back to. We've come to appreciate these members of our fictional family. It's really a pleasant Sunday evening to spend with them. They work in the same way that folktales work. There are stock characters. Alfred is in some ways like "lazy Jack," who acquires talents and when he has to face the devil, pulls them out of his pocket.